broken
by JasonGraceless
Summary: The story of Nico di Angelo's life and his deepest, darkest secrets, starting from when he found out Bianca died.
1. Chapter I

;;

As soon as Nico di Angelo found out that Percy Jackson had returned to camp, he burst out of the Hermes cabin, into the cold, and ran as fast as he could to find his sister, Mythomagic cards falling out of his pockets and swirling away with the wind. He was too excited to care, so he didn't bother to pick them up as he ran to the main entrance of camp. There was no one there. He ran to Artemis's cabin, the dining pavilion, the sword-fighting arena, and everywhere else he could think of with only one thought in mind: to see Bianca.

Finally, he stopped at the door of the parlor in the Big House, the only place he hadn't looked for her yet, when he heard voices inside. Bianca had put him through quite a wait, and he was so excited to see her again, that, when he knocked, he couldn't even wait for someone to say "come in" before bursting inside, huffing and puffing, his cheeks rosy from the cold, a huge smile on his face.

Everyone stopped talking abruptly and stared at Nico.

"Hey!" Still smiling, Nico looked around the room, scanning the faces, but he didn't find a match to the one he could see so clearly in his head.

There was Percy, there was Annabeth, and there was Chiron. Percy, Annabeth, and Chiron. Just the three of them.

Nico had checked every other place in Camp-Half Blood. Bianca hadn't been in any of the cabins, any of the rooms. He had even checked the creepy attic. He was now wondering if he should have went back and checked the cupboards in every room.

His smile faded.

The roaring fire in the fireplace that was keeping the room warm and cozy suddenly went out.

Now there was dead silence, without even the crackling of the fire.

The room felt cold.

Percy and Chiron exchanged glances.

Nico looked around the room once more, anxiously. "Where's… where's my sister?"

Percy looked at Nico uncomfortably as he got up from his chair.

"Hey, Nico. Let's take a walk, okay? We need to talk."

He led Nico out the door, and Nico couldn't help but notice the guilty, almost panicked look Percy shot Chiron on his way out.

;;

"Nico… I don't know how to tell you this, but… Bianca is dead."

A jumble of emotions was let loose inside of Nico. He felt disbelief, confusion, realization, then anger which slowly churned inside of him and became fury. And then numbness. He couldn't think anymore.

Nico didn't speak the whole time Percy explained what had happened. His ears were filled with a buzzing noise, and he heard Percy's story, but most of it went through one ear and out the other, only certain words and phrases like "sacrificed", "quest", "junkyard", and "couldn't help her" standing out in his brain.

Percy stopped talking.

The buzzing in Nico's ears cleared, and he could think again. It was like when the rain stopped, and the sun came out. Except, for Nico, there was no sun. All he could feel was the fury that had been so strong that he had momentarily been unable to think, but no warmth. The cold numbness of the rain had washed over him, taking away all of the warmth in his life, and leaving him in a river that was overflowing with rage.

Percy cleared his throat and scratched the back of his neck.

"She wanted you to have this."

He took out a little lead figurine from his pocket and put it in Nico's palm.

Nico stared at it.

It was of a god.

Hades.

It was the only one he didn't already have.

Nico heard roaring in his ears. Was this guy serious? He came to him, told him his sister was dead, and then gave him a little figurine from a stupid game he was obsessed with?

Correction. Used to be obsessed with. Now, Nico couldn't imagine being obsessed with anything. Other than bringing his sister back.

His voice shaking with anger, Nico managed a sentence.

"You promised you would protect her."

"Nico," Percy said. "I tried. But Bianca gave herself up to save the rest of us. I told her not to. But she—"

Nico couldn't stand another word from this guy. His sister was dead, and all he could do was blabber on about how he had told her not to.

This wasn't like when your mother told you not to try your soup while it was still hot, and you burned your tongue.

His sister was dead.

He could just imagine Percy as an old, dumpy lady, going around shaking her finger, warbling in a high-pitched voice, "I told her not to! But she went and did it anyway, and look what happened! She died, and I warned her!"

It wasn't funny. Nothing was funny anymore.

"You promised!", Nico interrupted before Percy could finish his sentence. Nico could feel tears gathering in his eyes as he glared at him. Nico closed his fist around the little figurine. "I knew I shouldn't have trusted you. You lied to me. My nightmares were right!"

Nico thought about the voice that had visited his dreams, telling him not to trust Percy, and that awful nightmare he had had of Bianca… dying…

"Wait. What nightmares?"

Nico couldn't believe him. Percy was _still_ focusing on the most mundane of things.

Unable to control his anger any longer, Nico let the river of fury inside him flood, and he flung the little statue of Hades to the ground, where it clattered across the marble on which snowflakes were gently falling. Snowflakes swirled around him as he screamed, "I hate you!"

Percy sounded desperate now. "She might be alive. I don't know for sure—"

Nico closed his eyes as his whole body trembled with the fury that was still supressed. "She's dead. I should have known it earlier. She's in the Fields of Asphodel, standing before the judges right now, being evaluated. I can feel it."

"What do you mean, you can feel it?"

Nico opened his mouth furiously, but then he heard a terrible noise. An evil, hissing clattering noise. He looked behind Percy and gasped. There were four skeletons, wearing modern military clothes and drawing swords.

Nico screamed. "You're trying to kill me! You brought these… these things?"

"No! I mean, yes, they followed me, but _no_! Nico, run. They can't be destroyed."

"I don't trust you!"

A skeleton charged, and Percy knocked aside its sword, but the others came. He sliced one in half and knocked another's head off, but they kept knitting back together and fighting him.

"Run, Nico! Get help!"

Nico screamed and pressed his hands to his ears, trying to block out the horrible hissing and clattering. "No!"

"No! _Go away_!", Nico screamed even more loudly.

Nico felt a tugging in his gut.

The icy marble floor of the dining pavilion rumbled.

Everyone froze.

Percy rolled out of the way a split second before a crack opened in the ground. Flames erupted from it, and the skeleton warriors were swallowed with a nasty crunching noise. The crack sealed itself, leaving a twenty-foot-long scar in the ground.

Percy looked at it in amazement, and then looked to Nico. "How did you—"

"Go away! I hate you! I wish you were dead!" Nico ran down the steps, heading towards the woods. Nico was aware of Percy following him, and then heard him slip and fall.

That was fine with Nico. He ran and ran and ran, until he couldn't anymore, and then stopped, panting, tears streaming down his face, at Zeus's Fist.

He buried his face in his hands and began to sob.

He heard footsteps, and Percy calling after him, and looked around desperately for a place to hide from that jerk. He frantically jumped into a crack between two boulders at the Fist.

But… he wasn't wedged between them. He fell down through them, and into a room of sorts below them. He touched the wall, and a blue Delta glowed. He couldn't hear Percy anymore. There was a tunnel in front of him. Taking one last look up, Nico took every ounce of his will and used it to march forward, determined to get as far, far away from Percy Jackson as possible, and vowing never to return.

He hated himself.

He hated Percy Jackson.

;;;


	2. Chapter II

;;

After taking only ten steps, Nico could feel tears beginning to pool in his eyes again.

He sank down against an earthy wall in the tunnel and began to cry.

He didn't know who he was or what he was supposed to do now.

He had never felt this alone before. Although he didn't remember his parents, Bianca had always been there for him, taking care of him and making sure he never had to do anything he couldn't manage.

Bianca had led him through everything, but somehow she had always managed to have his back and stand beside him at the same time.

She had given up that responsibility when she had become a Hunter, but she had told him that she would always be there for him if he needed her, and he could make friends and live at Camp Half-Blood.

That had been the next best thing. He got to train, fight monsters, and… what else?

Nico couldn't remember what else had made him so eager to go to Camp Half-Blood.

Now everything there seemed ruined.

What had it been that had made it almost as good as having Bianca with him?

He loved Bianca more than anyone, and there was nothing he loved that had been at Camp Half-Blood.

Unless… no… it couldn't be…

No! Nico thought, No! It's not true! There is no one that I have ever loved except Bianca!

As the truth dawned on him, Nico could feel more tears gathering in his eyes.

"No," Nico whispered. "I- I can't be…. I can't be…"

He stared at his fingers, held them up to his face to make sure that they were still his, and something alien hadn't taken over his body.

Nico's screams and sobs echoed off the walls of the tunnel.

He couldn't hide the truth from himself any longer.

He was in love with Percy Jackson.

;;;


	3. Chapter III

;;

Nico lay on the floor and sobbed for so long, he lost track of time. It could have been hours or days or weeks, he couldn't tell. He wouldn't have been surprised if it had been a month.

He didn't understand. Here he was acting like a homophobe, but he wasn't scared of himself… was he?

There is nothing for you to lose, Nico told himself over and over, There is no one left who you care about.

The problem was, there _was_ someone left that he cared about. There still _was _someone who could cringe away from him, call him a freak.

Nico couldn't see any end to this misery in his life. As soon as one bomb dropped and blasted him to pieces, another dropped, just to make sure that all the fragments were burned and charred and ruined beyond repair. He could glue himself back together after a lot of hard work, but he would never be the same.

And he was so young. He had so much of his life left that would go to waste.

It was so ironic, Nico thought bitterly. One the one hand, Percy would never know Nico's secret, but that meant Nico could never see Percy again. On the other hand, he could go back and confess, but that left the possibility that Percy would be disgusted by him and wish Nico hadn't returned at all. No matter what Nico did from here, he could never change Percy's feelings for him. No matter what he did, he would _always_ be unhappy. Strangley, the thought encouraged him.

He wiped his eyes and sat up.

Hiccuping, he mentally scolded himself for wasting so much time on something he couldn't change.

Nico began to feel a microscopic bit better, if that was possible. He wasn't over this, not at all. He doubted he would ever be over this, but at least now he knew what he had to do, even if he didn't know the right way to do it yet.

He couldn't change this no matter what he did, so he had to move forward from here. Change the things that just maybe could be helped. Like bringing his sister back.

So, with a new surge of determination, Nico stood up and marched through the tunnel ahead, pushing his misery and desperation in front of him like a shield, never looking back.

No one would ever get through his shield again.

Nico would never love anyone ever again. No one could ever get through again, the pain rebounded everyone. He just wished that he had put his shield up before Percy Jackson had managed to slip past it.

;;;


	4. Chapter IV

_A/N: Lots of thanks to long. live. HP. PJ. HG for helping me write the beginning!_

;;

"_Come in…", he heard a female voice hiss._

_The door creaked open by itself, and Nico was seriously considering running through the passage to his right. As though it had heard his thoughts, the tunnel disappeared. Well then. Looks like he had no other option, unless he stood at the doorway for the rest of his life. He doubted that the body attached to that voice would allow him that easy way out, though._

_Holding his makeshift weapon in front of him, Nico pushed open the door all the way and stood in the frame of the door._

_Then a shadow fell over him, and he gasped._

;;

Looking up, his breath stopped.

It was _her_, but at the same time, it couldn't be. Because Bianca di Angelo was _dead_. He had _seen_ her being judged, sent to Elysium in his dreams.

But he refused to believe it. She was right here.

At first, all he could see was her face.

The woman that stood before him still shone with that healthy immortal-maiden-of-Artemis glow. Her hair shone, and her black eyes gleamed.

"B-Bianca?" he whispered.

Then her face twisted into an ugly sneer. He had never seen such an expression on his loving, kind, gentle sister's face, so it was enough to send him over the edge with panic, and as he stumbled backwards, terrified, his focus went away from her face.

And Nico gaped up at his sister's face as his fear, anger, and confusion swirled his previously brightly colored emotions into a muddy, murky, mysterious brown that got darker and deeper every second he looked at her.

His short-lived happiness was extinguished like a fire, dancing and leaping and crackling with joy, and then gone the next second, leaving nothing but smoke and charcoal-black ashes. He didn't know how many more bombs he could take. Two had been dropped already, but this one was just as big and bad as the others.

_It's not her_, a part of his brain whispered. And as much as he didn't want to believe it, in his heart, he knew that his brain was right.

It was Bianca's face, he granted himself that much, but it wasn't her. She was all wrong.

For one thing, he slowly realized, she looked much older than Nico had ever seen her, at least in her twenties. And then (How had he not noticed before?) there was the fact that she was at least seven feet tall, her hair wasn't long, straight, dark brown, and plaited, but curly, short, and black, and her clothes…. _her clothes… _

She wore black biker's pants and a black crew neck t-shirt over a cherry (or was it blood?) red leather jacket that had a subtle design that matched the door exactly. She was leaning on a motorcycle, and…. Was that a _whip_ in her hand? It was meaner than any Nico had seen before, made of cold, black iron, coiled nastily into its owner's hand.

And then she laughed, and her laugh alone was enough to dissolve any of the hopeless hopes Nico had left of this woman being Bianca. It was an evil cackle, like the Wicked Witch of the West. Like… Nemesis.

All of a sudden, Nico remembered her from his deck of Minor Gods Mythomagic cards— he should have realized it was her from the design on the door alone. And the balance knocker made perfect sense now: it was _her_, goddess of revenge and balance.

But he had no idea why she looked like Bianca. In Mythomagic, Nemesis had her own face.

"You're… You're Nemesis."

Nemesis smirked in response, confirming his fear.

"But… But… In Mythomagic… you don't—"

"—look like your dead sister?" Nemesis supplied.

Nico ignored the pang that went through his heart at her words. "No! I mean, yes, you're right, but… she's dead! Why…. How... How do you know I'm seeing… _Why_ am I seeing—"

"—your dead sister?" Nemesis supplied again helpfully.

Nico sighed internally. He really wished she would stop interrupting her. She should have been goddess of interruptions, tactlessness, and mind-reading. "Yes."

"Let me tell you something— first of all, Mythomagic is for geeks. It never gets the facts right. Let me tell you another something— when you look at me, you see the person you hate most. Why do you think you see—"

"—my dead sister," Nico supplied dully. But what she had said made him falter. Why _did_ he see Bianca? The person he hated most? Why didn't he see Percy? Or himself? Anyone but his sister?

Then something clicked in his brain.

;;;


End file.
